Is Your Health Good Enough to Qualify for Long-Term Care Insurance?

Long-Term Care insurance is a health-qualifying type of insurance. You must be in reasonably good health in order to obtain coverage. If your health is not good enough to qualify for coverage, no amount of premium you are willing to pay will change the fact that you're ineligible. As with all types of insurance, many times those who want coverage the most are those who can't qualify for it.
If you decide to apply for coverage, you will go through a process called underwriting. Underwriting is defined as "a process of examining, accepting, or rejecting insurance risks, and then classifying those accepted in order to charge the proper amount of premium."
The LTC insurance underwriting process consists of answering questions about your health, and may also include a physical exam and/or request for medical information from your doctor.
If you currently have certain health conditions, you will automatically be ineligible to apply for LTC insurance. Some of these conditions are ones that you would expect: Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's Disease, and Multiple Strokes. Others, such as Schizophrenia may not be as obvious.
In addition to the conditions mentioned above, here are some other disqualifying conditions:

• AIDS
• Renal Failure
• Congestive Heart Failure
• Cirrhosis of the liver
• Diabetes with Complications
• Mental Retardation
• Severe Emphysema
• Transient Ischemic Attack

In addition to these conditions, you must not have needed any of the following during the preceding 12 months:

• Assistance with activities of daily living (bathing, eating, dressing)
• Home Health Care Services
• Care in a nursing home or assisted living facility
• A walker, wheelchair, medical appliance, kidney dialysis, manufactured source of oxygen

But even if you don't have any of the disqualifying conditions, it doesn't mean that you will automatically qualify for coverage. Underwriting is performed on an individual basis, and there may be other conditions, or combinations of conditions, that cause an application to be declined. For example, if you have high blood pressure that is controlled with medications, but you're significantly over weight, your application will probably be denied.

What is Long-Term Care?

In the broadest sense,  long-term care is defined as a need for assistance with the normal activities of daily living. Long-term care can be due to a disability or impairment, whether it be physical or mental in nature. TRUE long-term care is care needed for a period greater than 100 days.

Various definitions of long-term care can be found throughout the industry. For example, traditional insurance agents will attempt to scare you into believing that care needed for less than 100 days is a serious financial risk. This may lead you to focus on "small dollars," while placing too little emphasis on the risk of "large dollars" caused by the need for true long-term care. Short-term care is financially and emotionally inconvenient; long-term care is financially and emotionally devastating. Don't let anyone tell you differently.

How to Plan Ahead for Long-Term Care

The most effective way to plan for long-term care is to clearly view LTC Planning as an integral component of the financial and estate planning process.  Superior LTC developed a process called "Closing the Gap" to integrate LTC Planning with financial and estate planning. This approach has a proven track record for developing the most appropriate LTC plan for you, based on a logical and emotional analysis of your unique situation.
 
Close the Gap in Your Financial and Estate Plan

We've created a process that will allow you to make a deliberate decision about how you will pay for long-term care expenses. The plan that you develop using this process will be consistent with your financial and personal goals. Your decision will be an informed decision based on the knowledge gained from going through our process. 


Your plan may or may not include long-term care insurance. There are 3 other ways to pay for long-term care:

•  Family
•  Personal Assets
•  Medical (Welfare)

 The Closing the Gap process helps you to think about and answer the following questions:

• Who will provide my care if I need it? My family, a paid caregiver?
•  Where will that care take place? At home, in an assisted living facility?
•  How will I pay for that care? With my savings, with insurance?

By answering these questions ahead of time, you relieve your family from the stress of having to make painful decisions at the time your care is needed. 

There is no charge for using the Closing the Gap Online Module.